Musings
by moodygirl6
Summary: Natalia's thoughts on her first year of working in MDPD. With a surprise romantic interest thrown into the mix you just never know what goes through our favorite CSI's minds.


My whole life I have been dealt with the wrong end of the stick and I have come expect that I will never get what I truly want; even then of I get it, it would probably be over my dead, cold and lifeless body. Life is funny that way, one moment you are living it up, having the time of your life, the next you are surrounded by your worst nightmares. For those who are strong, they fight back; they gain a sense of morality and achievement, that they beat it and came away a better person for the experience. However, there are others who are not so fortunate and they drown in the darkness and silence that surrounds their hearts, never relinquishing its hold on your conscious, constantly keeping you in a state of death and delusion that never shows you the way out.

Little is known about why we are sometimes thrust into a world that we cannot thrive and survive in. Many say that it is a test to prove whether we are worthy or not of the peace that will great us in the afterlife. Others say that it is what it is and to live everyday as it comes and never regret the decisions you make.

As I said before, my life has never been one filled with champagne and caviar, but it has been one filled with love, loss and sometimes-unbearable truths. It all started for me when I worked as a DNA analyst with Miami Dade Police Department, I was assigned to go over all the cold cases and rerun any DNA evidence to make sure that the case was still as it was when the suspect was first charged, however many years ago. Unfortunately, for me things were never the same after that.

It was just like any other day, except that day, the day shift CSI's were due back from leave after the lab was destroyed a few months ago. She walked into the lobby and looked so beautiful, decked out in a white shirt and grey pants. My eyes couldn't seem to leave as she strode confidently for the elevator and towards me, making me wonder if it was all a dream.

Then she spoke. That aside from her physical beauty drew to me to her, that accent of hers could warm the coldest of hearts and I have to say it melted mine. Within seconds, I was mush the ground as she started talking. Get this, I didn't even know her name, just recognised her from the files the Feds gave me, before the whole undercover mole scenario.

Anyway, back to the woman who stole my heart, with but one smile?

She has that air about her, where you can't help but feel what she is feeling, if she is angry then you are going to be angry, if she is annoyed well then you better get ready to be annoyed. Though the one thing I always find calming about her is the fact that she can hide behind her professional mask and deal with the horrors she sees everyday and still come back into work the next morning as if the whole world is full of sunshine and daisy's, not a care in the world just as long as that State wide luminous smile is on her face, she can't be beaten.

How is it that she can, no matter what sort of day I have had, she can without fail distract me and provide me with a reason to come back to work and repeat the whole process again. Just so, I can hear her say my name in her Southern drawl, which by the way sends shivers down my spine every time, no joke. That accent got me good on the first day we met and it continues to do so every time we talk or say hello in passing, it consistently produces the same reaction without fail.

Now I have never been one for Religion, but there is something about the way she looks when we sat in on Officer Jessop's funeral, something about the way, that simple yet elegantly beautiful silver cross sits, resting delicately around her neck, reflecting off the sunlight and giving her a more heavenly glow as the sunlight bounces off her hair making it appear as if she had a halo 3 inches above her head and that wings were about to spout out of her back. Its funny how she can make one the more depressing aspects of human life, seem not so depressing. What I mean is that she can stand there decked out in all black, light make up on, with a single piece of jewellery and still manage to look as if she had just stepped off the catwalk and was ready to jet off to some hot Caribbean island for her next photo shoot. No matter who approached her that afternoon, 5 minutes talking with her and she had you smiling, laughing and remembering the good times instead of being like a stuck record, not being able to move forward onto the next line of life, but clinging to the same one over and over, hoping against hope that if you cling long enough that someone would listen and give you back the thing you love. A fallen Angel in disguise.

In your career in law enforcement, there will always be that case that haunts you, the one that got away or the one you could never find, so you still have that one case file stashed away at home and at every chance you get you repeatedly reread the witness statements, the autopsy report, tox report, look over the crime scene photos, trying to find one scrap of evidence to help further the investigation. Yet, they one clue always seems to elude you and make it impossible to forget and move on and help the next victim. Mine just happened to be a child killing I did the DNA profile for, when I worked with the FBI. I don't know why this particular case haunts me but now I think I understand why it got under my skin and imprinted itself there. A man had gone around, butchered a child, the only option we had was to compared a DNA sample with one off the child's toothbrush, he had beaten the poor thing so badly, that they were unrecognisable, so badly that the child's teeth had been knocked out, he had burned off the fingertips making it impossible to identify using fingerprints and so badly that nearly all the bones in the child's upper body had been either fractured, shattered or broken, before he stabbed the child repeatedly with extenuating force leaving deep tool mark impressions on the bone, which made ballistics job a whole lot easier.

Every night without fail my mind replays how I perceived that encounter to go down, as if I'm standing there watching the whole thing and not being able to warn the child, just having to stand there and watch as an innocent child is taken far, far too early from the world.

She once told me about the case that had her stuck like a broken record, able to move on with life, but always being brought back to that moment she stepped into that crime scene. She said it was a young girl who was raped in her own home and stabbed four times and left for dead, only to be found by her best friend, luckily she survived, but about a year later, the bastard struck again this time leaving no possible way she could rise from the ashes. Apparently though the second time he slipped up and left minute traces of fish scale on the body and that led to him being caught and sentenced with two counts of rape, one count of attempted murder and one count of murder meaning he was sent to death row to await his visit to the chair.

The way she just came out with it and told me, completely out of the blue had me even more in love with her, for the sheer fact that she trusted me so much to tell me something so personal, enough though she hates her colleagues seeing her so vulnerable and open. There was an edge to her voice almost resentment at herself for not catching the guy sooner. Catching the guy sooner would have spared that young girl's life, but sometimes you can never find anything to point the finger and make the sick person take the consequences of their actions, sometimes it takes another death to catch the worthless piece of shite before you can fully finish the puzzle, they have lain out with middle missing.

She refused to let the tears overwhelm her, as if her tears over a lost soul are unwanted. Every person who ends up in the morgue has someone, somewhere crying over the loss. Her tears were not unfounded, not unwanted, she needed to cry and be gone with the whole bottle full of emotions she had suppressed trying to prove that her emotions didn't rule her judgement in a male dominated world.

I was just grateful that it was me who saw her so broken and child like and not one of our male colleagues as they would immediately try and shield her from the horrors she saw everyday and make her feel not needed in a field of forensics that she excelled in. Therefore, we sat there, I returned the favour and told her about the little boy that haunted my nightmares, and we each healed a little bit over a shared pain that came with the job.

That is probably the only time I have ever seen her with her professional mask shattered and the woman underneath all the guns and gore of the job.

Then came the point of no return for me, when the Feds stormed the lab. Demanded to speak to everyone about some missing money, from the Mala Noche boss raid. I just knew that everyone in the la would be under fire bar me, making it very clear whom the mole within the lab was. The look of disgust on her face when she found out was one of the very few things that will always be printed on my memory.

I was the traitor and was not to be approached at any costs as far as everyone was concerned. For at least a month I spent nearly all my time in the evidence locker going over passed cases, keeping well away from my rather pissed off colleagues.

Then I figured out another way to piss them off, I went ahead and took my CSI proficiency exams and passed much to my astonishment and even then to stick the knife in deeper, their Lutenanat Horatio Caine offered me a permanent place on his team. Piece of cake really, it added to the fuel tanks of some particular members of the team, cough, cough Ryan, but what surprised me the most is that she stood there and just took it nodded her head at H and left without further explanation.

After a while, they finally started to accept me back into the fold as it were. The glares, whispering behind my back and cold shoulder treatment eventually faded away until they were smiles and gossip exchanges, they had finally seen what I had tried to portray, from the moment I walked into the lab, a smart, beautiful and independent woman who can hold her own in any kind of situation, I was placed in. Now they could see the real me as opposed to the snitch, they were all shown of me.

All things happen for a reason my Mother used to say but right now, I'm starting to think that maybe she was onto something. After all aren't Mother's supposed to have infinite wisdom about things that we cannot hope to explain until we are their age, old with cats and we are playing bowls in the backyard sipping lemonade, bitching about the youth of that day and age.

Then again, when I'm old and gray I won't be stuck around waiting for the 'End'. I want to be out and about living my life surrounded by my friends and family. So, I have officially put my name in the running to win the heart of Calleigh Duquesne. Watch out Ryan, Eric, Horatio and any other man out there, I don't play fair when it comes to matters of the heart and I can guarantee that at the end of the day, someone's heart is going to be broken, and it ain't gonna be me. So, watch out I'm the dark horse in this race and you don't even know I'm in running. Funny how life can throw you and curve ball, you just have to know how to hit it back.


End file.
